| Rhamphorhynchoidea Fossil range: Late Triassic – Late Jurassic | |
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 Rhamphorhynchus | |
| Scientific classification
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Rhamphorhynchoidea | |
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The Rhamphorhynchoidea forms one of the two suborders of pterosaurs and represent a grade of primitive members of this group of flying reptiles. This suborder is paraphyletic in relation to the Pterodactyloidea, which arose from within the Ramphorhynchoidea, not from a more distant common ancestor. Because it is not a completely natural grouping, Rhamphorhynchoidea is not used as a formal group in most scientific literature, though some pterosaur scientists continue to use it as an informal grouping in popular works, such as The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time by David Unwin, and in some formal studies.
Ramphorhynchoids were the first pterosaurs to have appeared, in the Late Triassic Period. Unlike their descendants the pterodactyloids, most rhamphorhynchoids had teeth and long tails, and most species lacked a bony crest, though several are known to have crests formed from soft tissue like keratin. They were generally small, and disappeared at the end of the Jurassic Period.
Classification[]
Taxonomy[]
Listing of families and superfamilies within the suborder Rhamphorhynchoidea, after Unwin 2006.
Dimorphodon macronyx
Sordes pilosus
- Order Pterosauria
- Suborder Rhamphorhynchoidea *
- Preondactylus
- Family Dimorphodontidae
- Family Anurognathidae
- Superfamily Campylognathoidea
- Family Campylognathoididae
- Family Rhamphorhynchidae
- Subfamily Rhamphorhynchinae
- Subfamily Scaphognathinae
- Suborder Rhamphorhynchoidea *
- Rhamphorhynchoids of uncertain relationships (incertae sedis)
- Comodactylus
- Laopteryx
- Odontorhynchus
- Parapsicephalus
- Rhamphinion
References[]
- Unwin, D. M., (2003). "On the phylogeny and evolutionary history of pterosaurs." In Buffetaut, E. & Mazin, J.-M., eds. Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs. London: Geological Society of London, Special Publications 217, 2003, pp. 139-190.